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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25761571">A Present</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethnee/pseuds/Ethnee'>Ethnee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallout 4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, that cute shit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:27:12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,549</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25761571</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethnee/pseuds/Ethnee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Curie has a request for Piper. It's not what she expects.</p><p>---</p><p>A short story for for a friend, a long time ago.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Curie/Piper Wright</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Present</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Ms. Piper,” Curie said, “I… have a request.”</p><p>The french girl was new. The french <em> robot </em> was just another robot, but now dark brown eyes had replaced dented eye stalks, and soft hands replaced cold claws. Piper hadn’t gotten used to it quite yet. One doesn’t write half a dozen articles bemoaning the threat of synths replacing people, and not bat an eye when a synth replaces someone, even just a robot.</p><p>It was all very odd.</p><p>“Dazzle me, cutie. Curry. <em> Curie</em>,” Piper stumbled. She’d tried to start out suave, but it came out <em> too suave</em>, and something in her brain flashed red alert before rushing to fix it. “Uh, what’s your ask?”</p><p>Curie giggled, lips turning up in a smile even as she wrung her hands and curled her shoulders in. “You are kind. But-” She sighs. “I do not wish to make it seem that I do not appreciate the labor of your work.”</p><p>“My work?”</p><p>“Your paper,” she explained. “It is very dear to you, and very good. The spread of information freely among the people is something to be admired.”</p><p>Piper’s cheeks tinted. “Well… shucks. Thanks.”</p><p>“<em>But</em>, I do, have… a request.” She lingered a moment longer, picking nonexistent dirt out from under her fingernails, before looking up from under dark lashes. “I wonder if you would perhaps display scientific articles there, too.”</p><p>“Scientific?” Piper struggled not to bark a laugh. “Have you seen the locals of Diamond City? We’ve already got a science center in town, but nobody can be assed to tell the difference between a mole rat and a mongoose. I don’t think they’d really be receptive to educational material.” But then she closed her big mouth and saw Curie’s look of disappointment, so sad and genuine it made her wince. “But, I mean, you know,” she backpedaled. “It’s possible. What were you thinking?”</p><p>Again with the hand-wringing. “Perhaps something on the local flora and fauna. Something immediately useful. What plants are best to eat or cook with, the benefits of eating certain kinds of meat. And then, with time… something more in depth. Diamond City may have a school and science center, but other settlements…” She stared off, wistfully, down the road, away from Red Rocket and towards Sanctuary. </p><p>Piper nodded, scratching her chin in thought. “Could always strike some kind of marketing deal with Polly. Maybe put some coupons on, for getting the best cut of meat. But is that really what you want with a free press?” She trailed off, then shook her head and looked back to Curie. “What made you think of it? And why ask <em> me</em>? I’m sure the tin man would be interested in having that kind of thing in the Brotherhood, or Captain Garvey could use it.”</p><p>“Because they do not teach the common people,” Curie explained, hands closing into fists. Her eyes blazed with a brief spark of passion, of idealism. “Education should be free to everyone, no? I do not wish to see my knowledge given to soldiers. I am-” She faltered. “I am a <em> doctor</em>. I am very tired of seeing people get hurt. I would like them to know how to fix it.”</p><p>Piper stared, lips parted. Then she swallowed, lowering her brows back down over her eyes. “Well, hell,” she said, adjusting her cap. “I don’t think I’m allowed to say no to you, now. Let me know when you want to start doing… whatever it is you’ve got planned, and I’ll slap it on a piece of paper and publish it.”</p><p>Curie’s eyes sparked again, now with eagerness. “Today? Could we do it today? Oh, I have such ideas.”</p><p>Piper’s gaze flicked up towards the sky, a lush blue being overtaken by fat gray clouds rolling past the sun. “Looks like it’ll rain. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to leave today.”</p><p>Then she looked back, and Curie’s eyes were so brown, so big, lip screwed up in a pout, slim, soft hands held together in pleading…</p><p>Piper swore inside her head, tore off her cap and slapped it against the table. “But! I’m sure it’ll be fine. Sure. Let’s go. Off we go. Off to see the wizard. <em> Yup </em>.” </p><p>Curie brightened back up again with a wide smile, and headed off to grab “some things,” for “research purposes.” Piper deflated with a sigh and moved to follow her, taking a few steps before racing back, grabbing her cap, and then running after Curie.</p><p> </p><p>It was not fine.</p><p>“This is not flower picking weather!” Piper howled, gripping her cap to her head with one hand and using the other to ward rain from her face. Curie trudged on, grabbing a fistful of hubflowers in one hand and stuffing them into a basket. Rain had soaked her clothes, and her short hair clung to her face, though she stubbornly refused to acknowledge it. “<em>Curie!”  </em></p><p>“Just a few more minutes!” the girl replied, kneeling down in the mud as the wind blew harder, throwing the rain around so much you could see the shape of the breeze. “I have found a few different varieties of the-” The rest of her scientific explanation was lost in a crack of thunder. The rain felt cold and unforgiving, now, pelting Piper’s cheek and making her shiver in her jacket. </p><p>At last, Piper caught up, noting the basket full of picked flowers as she curled a hand around the collar of Curie’s shirt. “We gotta go,” she said. “We’ll catch cold.”</p><p>“I am not cold!” Curie insisted, though as Piper held her collar, she realized the french girl was trembling.</p><p>“You’re freezing!” Piper insisted.</p><p>“I am frightened!” Curie said, looking back over her shoulder with a stubborn jut of her jaw. “It is a normal human reaction.”</p><p>“You’re a synth, and you’re shaking because you’re <em> cold</em>, you tato.” She helped Curie to her feet and took off her jacket, wrapping it around the other girl’s shoulders. Curie just had on jeans and a flannel - at least Piper had multiple layers. “Follow me!” she said, over another crack of thunder.</p><p>Marching through the thick marshland mud, they found a wrecked cabin between the trees, much of the roof gone but enough remaining to call it a shelter. Piper found a corner of the building and used some ratty drapes to pitch a tent against one of the standing walls, and a bottle of congealed cooking oil under the sink was poured over said curtains, hoping to repel some of the rainwater.</p><p>“There,” Piper said, teeth chattering as she joined Curie under their tent. “Now we won’t, you know, die.”</p><p>“Rain is not toxic,” Curie informed her, clearly put out that she hadn’t been allowed to continue flower picking.</p><p>“Maybe not, but the flu will kill ya,” Piper said, tapping a finger to the side of her nose. “Besides, you can’t see as well in the rain, but a deathclaw can still smell you.”</p><p>This seemed to abate Curie’s pouting enough that she pulled over her basket of flowers, and began sorting them according to some order Piper didn’t bother trying to comprehend. “Whacha got there?” she asked, instead.</p><p>“Healing herbs,” Curie replied. With a delicate, muddy finger she pointed to each plant, one by one. “A piece of willow bark to help with fever. Poppy can be used as a drug or anaesthetic. Lavender, peppermint, catnip.” And several others.</p><p>The names Piper recognized, but the plants didn’t look as they did in books. She knew some of them had been renamed or used for healing purposes, but their old names, their Pre-War names, along with their Pre-War appearances, had been lost to the radiation.</p><p>“That’s swell. Here, give me some.”</p><p>Curie arched a brow but didn’t argue, handing over a handful of stems and petals. With deft hands. Piper quickly weaved them together, forming a sweet smelling loop held together by muds and careful tied. When finished, she placed it on her head, over her cap, and beamed. “See? Flower crown.”</p><p>Curie lit up, eyes sparkling. “How darling!”</p><p>Piper preened, just a bit, at being called “darling,” even if she knew Curie meant it more for the crown itself. “Yeah,” she said, all unmodestly modest. “It’s something I made for Nat a lot, when she was younger. It’s not cool anymore, ‘cause she’s a grown up teenager, or nearly so. Flower crowns are lame now.” She winked, and Curie giggled.</p><p>“Can you… make me one?” Curie asked, one hand held to her lips to hide a shy smile.</p><p>Piper beamed in return, and set to making another one, this time using dark blue blossoms instead of pale yellow, and shifted to gently place it on the crown of Curie’s head, the french girl leaning down and into the gesture.</p><p>“Here, as a present. I dub thee Princess Lavender,” Piper grinned, and wiped flower mud from her hands onto the thighs of her pants. </p><p>Curie smiled and pulled Piper’s coat tighter around her. “It’s not lavender.”</p><p>“Well, whichever it was. Daisies. Roses. Buttercups. Lemons.”</p><p>“Why would you think this is a lemon flower?”</p><p>“Why would you <em> not </em>think it was a lemon flower?”</p><p>By the time the sun came out, they’d made every flower into a tiara, and carried them home in a royal basket.</p>
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